Cynthia

A 16-year-old was babysitting his girlfriend’s 23-month-old son. The baby wouldn’t stop crying so he covered the boy’s head with a pillow and punched him in the head until his brain bled. The child died. At trial, the teen sobbed and screamed that he’d loved him. Then the judge read out a phone call he’d made from jail and it ended him. The boy’s name was Austin Smith. He was 23 months old. The 16-year-old, Dylan, was left alone to watch him and when Austin wouldn’t settle, he smothered him with a pillow and beat him in the head with his fists. The toddler suffered a brain hemorrhage and died. In the courtroom, Dylan put on a performance. He cried hard. He screamed that he never meant to kill anyone, that he loved little Austin, that it was all a terrible mistake. For a moment, it almost looked like it might work on the jury. Then the judge pulled out a recording a call Dylan had made to his own mother from jail, before the trial. On it, in his own voice, he’d laid out the plan: “I’m a 16-year-old blond kid. I just need to cry in front of the jury and they’ll feel sorry for me.” He hadn’t been grieving. He’d been rehearsing. The judge handed him the maximum: 25 years to life. So here’s what splits people: is 25-to-life too heavy for a 16-year-old who still has a whole life ahead of him or does a boy who kills a baby for crying, then coldly games the court with fake tears, deserve to never walk free at all?